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Happiness is Believing in Unicorns

Rainbows make us smile and unicorns make us smile. Put them together and we couldn’t be happier. We know rainbows exist because we have seen them. But what about unicorns? Here is a little history we found on both rainbows and unicorns.

What makes a rainbow? As sunlight passes through the water droplets, it is bent and split into the colors of the rainbow . Sunlight is known as visible or white light and is actually a mixture of all visible colors. Rainbows appear in seven colors because water droplets break white sunlight into the seven colors of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). You can only see a rainbow if the sun is behind you and the rain in front. The main rainbow becomes visible at an angle of around 40″ from the horizon.

No two people see the same rainbow, in fact even our individual eyes see slightly different rainbows. If someone appears to be standing under a rainbow you can see, they will see a different rainbow at the same angle but further away.

A “double rainbow” is where a second, much fainter arc can be seen outside of the primary arc. This is caused by the light reflecting twice inside the water droplets. As a result of this double reflection the colors of the second arc are inverted with violet on the outer edge and red on the inner edge.

Sir Isaac Newton identified the 7 colors of the visible spectrum that together make up white light. All of which are present in a rainbow in the order red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (the acronym or name ROY G BIV is a good way to remember these colors and their order).

So what about unicorns?

So far the only way we know how to see a unicorn is by visiting our website and seeing our adorable stuffed animal styles. However, we did find a lot of information on what may or may not be part of the unicorn lore. Here are a few facts we found interesting:

The first mention of a unicorn was by an Indian doctor, Ctesias, who described the creature as having a white body, purple head and blue eyes.

The Unicorn has been a part of the Royal Seal of Scotland since the 1300s. When James became king of both Scotland and England, he redrew the Royal Coat of Arms to include both the Lion of England and the Scottish Unicorn.

A newly discovered skull fossil found in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan, “Elasmotherium sibiricum” lived roughly 29,000 years ago but looked more like a rhinoceros than the mythical fairy tale version we know and love. The study, published in the American Journal of Applied Sciences, also revealed that these unicorns stood about six feet tall, measured 15 feet long, and weighed around 8,000 pounds.

Whatever version of unicorns you believe in, we believe in the adorable, stuffed, huggable Pillow Pet Unicorns – the original purple Pillow Pet Unicorn (retired), the Rainbow Unicorn, Mystical Unicorn, and the new Sweet Scented Pillow Pet Cotton Candy Unicorn.